Cynthia
by Shoutenryu
Summary: The first encounter with youma in the city of Triet. set Many years before the manga's beggining.


its has been a while...

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I was born to the beggining of a turbulent era. One of the creatures had finally reached our village of Triet, and so the feast began. The people of the village wished to escape, but dare not open even a shutter for fear of it. We only dared come out by daylight and even then we avoided the shadows, and on the eighth day a merchant came by and told us the name of our nameless fear.

Youma.

Weeks went by and there were no attacks, this gave us hope, maybe the _youma_ had left, perhaps Andrew, the Tanner, was all it needed for this year or decade. The adults frightfully joked that the mad old man had given it food poisoning, or that the beast could not bear to eat of his putrid flesh.

They were wrong.

And they knew they were and yet had only the courage to joke and wistfully remember his beatiful wife and coarse children. All but one had suffered the fate of his family, one of which was alive and well but in constant mourning. We all coddled little Cynthia, and she obliged to show us her courage and hope. My family even invited her to stay with us for the night. The families of the village all did this, for we couldn't bear to leave her in the house that stank of decay and rot and sallow beds of blood. Yet, none had the valour to brave the house, to check its remains, to bury the dead. We all feared it my still lurk there. It did not, but we did not know. And all was well in our town, and we healed of our abhorent mishap, and all was well.

Until the sixth day of the seveth week of mourning.

I awoke to the sound of Cynthia's childish moans, and to the sound of mother's whistling kettle. I turned over and pushed my head farther into the pillow, hoping that the whistling and crying would stop. For surely mother would pull the kettle from the flames, for surely Ethan would tend to Cynthia's comtemptuous pouts, for surely father would push me awke for another hard day's work as the Cheif Sand painter's daughter. The whistling did not stop, Cynthia's cry's grew to more of an exultant chant, and Father was not present, or so it seemed. Soon the whistling did stop but it had taken to me what had seemed the better part of an hour. Mother was never tardy in her daily tasks and Brother was never lax in his care for Cynthia and Father was always up earlier than I... and... and I... was now afraid.

For her chant grew to rougish laughter, and I could hear the sound of a nursing baby.

The squelching, and sucking but remembered that there was no baby to be nursed, not for miles away, not was there even one baby in our town. I was afraid. And slowly I opened my eyes to see Cynthia's back quaking with laughter, tearing at the coprses at her feet. I dare not look down for they were dead, I knew they were, hoped they were, for to endure such a jubliant meal would be worse than the pain. The pain of your intestines spilling out and liver distending from your gut, your heart beating in rampant insanity, your lungs sucking for air and finding naught but blood.

Then it stopped, and Cynthia walked out of the house and so did I.

At first I was mute, dumb, unknowing and unfeeling but then... then the sun pressed its gaze to my back and the terror struck looks of the townsfolk befell my vision, and I screamed. Screamed incoherent nothings into the darkness of the fourth day of Juno, screamed and screamed and soon Elder Hadreth. caught me by the arm with a weary glance. And slowly I articulated one meager sentence and a feeble point to boot.

"It is Cynthia, she is the one, she is the one... who... she is the one..."

At once my bleary stare faded and the cold expanse of sleep befell me. When I awoke Elder Hadreth had mustered the Trietian, the whip masters of the village and ask that they guard me, me and Cynthia. They took the job with the at upmost importance and vigilance, and the days faded and again the people grew hopeful. I did not. Cynthia would speak to me, kindly, full of pout, of foul words a child of nine should not know, it was just as she had always been.

But that was what had unnerved me.

Cynthia was the most astute child of Triet, not that her scores in school were any greater than any nine year old, but her mind was sensitive to the movemnt of people in the village. It always grew distant when one had been angry with her or accused her of an unjust crime. It was then i noticed that The Youma waswas...was_ wearing_... Cynthia, and that I would be her next costume.

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